Portrait of Cristiano Banti

In 1866 Florence was the capital of the new kingdom of Italy and the king was living in this palace. Boldini was 24, two years into his Florentine period, and the man he painted here was the painter Cristiano Banti, who bought his work and opened doors for him in the city. Banti stands in an interior with patterned wallpaper and a coloured carpet, a cigar in his left hand and a cane in the other, his overcoat and top hat thrown over the small armchair at the right. He is dressed for the street rather than the studio. Boldini put the portrait in the Florentine Promotrice, the art society's annual show, as one of two he kept back from sale, and signed it in cursive at the lower left.